A treatise on neuralgic diseases : dependent upon irritation of the spinal marrow and ganglia of the sympathetic nerve / by Thomas Pridgin Teale.

  • Teale, Thomas Pridgin, 1801?-1868.
Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on neuralgic diseases : dependent upon irritation of the spinal marrow and ganglia of the sympathetic nerve / by Thomas Pridgin Teale. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    The following case is related in illustration. Miss C. aet. 17, (Sept. 1822) of a robust make, and appa- rently in good health, for more than a year has corn- pi lined of pain situated below the left mamma. This has been fixed to one spot for nearly the whole time. It is a gnawing bruised feeling, increased materially by fatigue of any kind, and, after fatigue, it is attended with restlessness. It is relieved by reclining in the horizontal posture. It is not sore to the touch. The complaint has been treated by a surgeon in the country as rheumatism. She has been bled and blistered for it without any good effect, and at last it has occasioned so much anxiety in the minds of her relations, that she is brought to Glasgow, from a considerable distance, for the benefit of further medical advice. On examin- ing the spine, it is found to be perfectly of the natural shape and appearance, but when pressure is made on it, about the seventh or eighth dorsal vertebra, she com- plains of a considerable feeling of tenderness, amount- ing even to pain; and she finds that the uneasy sensa- tion shoots forward exactly to the affected part of the breast. She had not paid any attention to this affected part of the spine, indeed she had not any idea that there was any thing faulty there, till her attention was called to it by the examination. When the affection of the spinal nerves is situated about the middle of the lumber vertebrae, it is apt to occasion severe pain in some part of the abdomen. I have seen it of a spasmodic nature, attended with flatu- lency, and occupying apparently the arch of the colon; and in one case it seemed to be fixed in the caput coli. In these cases the severity of the complaint may appear to call for powerful evacuations, from the apprehension that inflammation! exists; whereas, if the attention be